


regulus

by oryx



Category: Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, Super Sentai Series
Genre: Gen, Jossed, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 19:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11538483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: Day tripping on a distant planet.





	regulus

The view out of his cabin’s porthole window is one he’s never seen before. A quaint little patchwork town, on a planet he’s fairly sure he doesn’t know – he’d remember the soft lilac shade of the sky, after all, the ocean in the distance made of greenish blue smoke that rolls in and out across a dark pebbled shoreline.  
   
“Finally up, huh?” Luka says as he steps out on to the bridge. She’s looking at him over the top of a hologram copy of the daily newspaper, a headline reading _Wormholes Appearing With More Frequency In Several Solar Systems_ scrolling across the front page. “Thought you were about to sleep all day.”  
   
Gai lifts a hand to rub at the back of his neck sheepishly. “I, uh, stayed up kinda late adding some more pages to my sentai scrapbook.” He brightens and runs over to take a seat across from her at the table. “Do you want to see? ‘Cause I really worked hard on them, they’re all color-coded and – ”  
   
“Yeah, maybe later,” she says, cutting him off and rolling her eyes. “Eat some food before you start on a tangent, will you?”  
   
Doc sets a plate down in front of him, his special pancakes paired with colourful slices of unnamable alien fruits, which Gai accepts with a grin and a “thanks.”  
   
“Where are we?” he asks in between bites. “‘S there treasure here or something?”  
   
“The planet’s called Eruza,” Doc says. “We come here every year. It’s kind of a Gokaiger tradition, I guess.”  
   
Gai tilts his head to the side. “Why?”  
   
“They’ve got good grilled meat at this one place,” Marvelous says from his seat in the captain’s chair, stifling a yawn behind his hand. “What more reason d’you need?”  
   
Luka makes a noise that sounds a bit like a muffled, disbelieving laugh, and Marvelous turns around to glare at her.  
   
“What’s so funny?”  
   
She shrugs, amusement written plainly across her face. “Nothing.”  
   
Doc leans down to whisper in Gai’s ear. “We actually come here for Ahim’s sake,” he says. “But you know how Marvelous is.”  
   
“For Ahim?” Gai whispers back – or tries to, at least. Never been much good at controlling his volume. “Does she know somebody who lives here?”  
   
Doc shakes his head. “Not quite.” He looks contemplative for a moment, until an idea seems to occur to him. “You should tag along. I’ve gone with her a few times, but. I’m stuck doing repairs today.” His brow knits together as he pouts. “There’s a shop down in town, with a bunch of flowers out front so you can’t miss it – she’s probably there now, if you want to go meet up.”  
   
He turns out to be very correct about the shop: it’s un-missable, with potted plants in every colour imaginable (and some even beyond that) spilling out into the street and obstructing traffic. Small shrubs with strange spiral-shaped berries glowing faintly on their branches, plants that might be simple herbs if not for their translucent leaves veined with neon orange, and dozens upon dozens of flowers, some with petals the size of his head, others growing not from soil but from cubes of dense crystal.  
   
Gai wanders into the shop, pushing aside the tendrils of a hanging vine that physically recoils from his touch. If the plants outside were overwhelming in number, they have nothing on the crop inside, which cover the walls so thoroughly they might as well be part of the structure. Ahim is the only customer in the place, standing in front of a display of flower seeds with a finger tapping against her chin thoughtfully. She glances up and smiles as he approaches.  
   
“Oh, Gai. Which do you think?” She holds up two seed packets, each with the image of a different flower decorating it – one a dark purple and the other a vibrant red.  
   
“Um,” Gai says. “Red?”  
   
Ahim’s eyes light up. “You think so? I was leaning a bit in that direction myself. That was always his favorite colour.”  
   
“His?” Gai echoes, but Ahim is already walking away, heading to the counter to flag down the salesperson.  
   
“Would you like to come along with me?” she asks after she’s paid for her wares, and Gai grins despite not understanding a thing that’s going on.  
   
“Yeah, sure,” he says. It seems to be the right answer, as Ahim gives him yet another sunny smile, linking her arm with his as they leave the shop and set off down the winding village streets.  
   
  
   
  
   
“Soooo… Where’re we headed, exactly?” he asks. They’ve long since passed the town outskirts, meandering along a well-worn dirt path that twists around ancient-looking trees and across stretches of open field, cutting a swath through the long white grasses.  
   
“Oh, did the others not tell you?” She ‘hmm’s to herself, lifting her skirts as she steps neatly over a hole in the path. “No, I suppose they wouldn’t have. You see, my home planet has a tradition concerning the day of someone’s birth. Everyone has a personal garden – or at the very least a small place of their own to grow something. And every year on a person’s birthday, they plant flowers. If the flowers flourish, your year will be full of good grace and fortune. Or so the saying goes.”  
   
Gai pauses for a moment, processing her words piece by piece, then darts forward to block her path, nearly tripping on a tree root as he does so. “You mean,” he says, with excitement bubbling up inside him, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet, “it’s your birthday? You should’ve told me! I love birthdays. Any kind of holiday, really, but. Birthdays especially. If I’d known I would’ve gotten you a present, or – or thrown a party! The Galleon’s really lacking in parties, if you ask me. Marvelous still won’t tell me his birthday, but I think Joe knows it, so maybe I can…”  
   
He trails off, voice fading away as he sees Ahim shaking her head.  
   
“Today is not _my_ birthday,” she laughs. “Mine is not until the next lunar solstice. It is my younger brother’s.”  
   
Gai blinks.  
   
“Your – your brother? You have a…”  
   
“I suppose I haven’t spoken of him to you before, have I? It is… not exactly an easy topic to broach.” Her smile seems to falter for a moment, but it settles back into place as they reach their destination: a small overgrown flower garden, situated near a creek where a current of smoke (a shade lighter than that of the distant ocean) swirls past, curling around rocks and over fallen branches. There’s an old, rusty box next to the garden, and Ahim hefts the lid open to reveal a set of tools: gloves and a trowel and a bright pink watering can. She shakes what looks like a tiny lizard out of the gloves before putting them on without hesitation.  
   
“My brother was a good deal younger than me,” she explains as she kneels down next to a mostly-empty patch of soil and begins to pull up the weeds that have encroached there. Gai hurries to crouch down alongside her to help. “And actually,” she continues, “we are not related by blood. He was the son of a loyal retainer to the Famille family, who passed away unexpectedly when he was only a baby. There was no one to take him in, and so my mother and father decided to adopt him as their own.  
   
“Of course this was not a popular decision. There was much talk of it being an ‘insult to our noble bloodline.’ Or of him someday trying to usurp my claim to the throne.” Her lips twist into a scowl (or as much of a scowl as she is capable of) as she yanks at a particularly difficult plant. “I am loathe to say it, but my people were not always the most open-minded. My brother was treated rather poorly by many of the members of our Court.”  
   
She tugs the stubborn weed out of the soil and tosses it aside, and sighs in such a way that it seems to travel through her whole body.  
   
“But,” she says, “we loved him dearly. My parents and I. He was our family, even if the Court did not agree. And we had arrangements in place to keep him safe, to carry him far away, in the event that anything ever happened to us.”  
   
Gai’s mind is racing, thoughts stumbling over one another. He’s heard a bit about what happened to Ahim’s planet – enough to just barely piece together what she’s telling him.  
   
“So you think,” he says slowly, “that he’s still alive out there somewhere?”  
   
Ahim nods, a fierce kind of certainty in her eyes. “I know that he is.” She smiles fondly, then, brushing a strand of hair from her face and setting to work digging holes for seed planting. “He was a somewhat shy and awkward child. I think due to all the scorn that he faced. I used to try to brighten his mood – to tell him that he could be happy, if he only just looked at things a little differently. If he saw the upside instead of the negative. The silver lining. Isn’t that what you Earthlings call it? And you know, I think in the end he really began to believe it. Those things I said to him.  
   
“I used to tell him,” she says, “that he was the luckiest boy in the universe.”  
   
  
   
  
  
  
   
It’s dark by the time they start their trek back to town, the fluorescent blue moss that clings to the tree trunks illuminating the path ahead of them well enough to manage.  
   
“This was very nice,” Ahim says. She’s walking with her hands clasped in front of her, a small smile visible in the half-light. “Thank you for accompanying me, Gai. Perhaps… you will consider coming along again next year?”  
   
“Sure,” he says. “But… you should think positive! Maybe by next year you’ll have found him, right? A happy reunion and all that. And then he can come along with you instead, and plant his own flowers. I mean, it’s a big universe, but. Things have a way of working out when you least expect it.” He folds his arms across his chest and nods sagely. “That’s what I think, at least.”  
   
Ahim looks at him, long and thoughtful, before laughing softly. “I suppose you’re right. I should be more of an optimist, shouldn’t I? It would be a bit hypocritical of me not to be.” She stops and tilts her head back to stare up at the sky. “Look there,” she says, pointing to a formation of bright stars, tracing their shape slowly with her fingertip. “We used to watch the night sky from the palace balcony. Where I come from, that constellation is called the King’s Crest. But I think, on Earth, it is called… Leo?  
   
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” she says, with a hum in her voice, “if somewhere out there at this very moment, he was looking at it, too.”


End file.
